


Meant to Be

by delighted



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: (but it's long for a coda), (one chapter each), Coda, First Kiss, M/M, POV Alternating, Post Episode S7E23
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 21:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11067093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delighted/pseuds/delighted
Summary: On the way home from the North Shore that night, Danny makes a very important decision about what to do with the man who forced his way into his life seven years ago.Meanwhile, Steve’s spent the better part of the day trying to come up with a plan himself, about what to do with his frustrating-yet-adorable partner.





	1. (Danny's POV)

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a quick little something, then it took on a whole life of its own, and as usual, I let it. It’s the latest in my “I’m perpetually behind in watching the show and writing post-episode stories.” I caught up to episode 23, and there was no way I wasn’t doing something with at least a few of the wonderful, wonderful treats in it. So, here’s this. 
> 
> Chapter one is Danny’s point of view, and chapter two is Steve’s.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

By the time his back-up came to relieve him and Danny headed home, he was feeling pretty dang emotional. He probably would have fought admitting it, but he’d actually been really emotional all day, even before Tanaka came knocking on his door. The reason might have had something to do with a certain big jerk who had muscled his way in on Danny’s "Make Charlie’s Room Race Car Themed" project.

Steve and Charlie had really bonded lately—it had started when Steve had begun hanging out with them as a family more and more, especially since he’d found out about his grandfather and had been needing a sense of family. But in truth, it probably went a little further back. Like, to Steve finding that damn list.

To Danny, it seemed as though Steve was trying to get stuff “in” before it was “too late.”

Whatever the reason or reasons were, the result was that Steve and Charlie had gotten really close lately. And it was doing really puzzling things to Danny’s insides. The fact that he’d called Steve as his back up, that despite his pessimistic-as-crap attitude about the likelihood of his survival, he’d trusted that Steve would save them... well, that might also have done some funny things to his insides.

The point is, he’d been a bit predisposed towards sentimentality all day, so how emotional he was by that evening was, yes, in part to do with the memories the case brought up, but it was also in good part a pre-existing condition.

Sitting at Makino’s bedside, after his “confession”—and there was something to be said for saying those things out loud; he might think them to himself, even quite frequently, but he often stopped half way through, and he never managed to finish. So, yes, saying them out loud had been, frankly, a release.  As he’d settled down to wait for the replacement guard, and found himself willing Makino to wake, Danny had realized he was thinking of Steve maybe just slightly differently. Steve who was home with his boy. Steve who had no doubt made him dinner and was keeping it warm. Steve who had probably made himself completely at home—Danny could picture it—those infuriating bare feet up on the coffee table, glass of wine in one hand, remote in the other, flicking through Danny’s DVR to find what Bond movies he had saved.

Lately Steve had seemed more at home in Danny’s house than in his own, and Danny had granted him a sort of _he’s emotional because of his grandfather, and he doesn’t deal well, so he’s hanging out with me_ kind of a thing. It was something that Danny had grown a bit used to over the past seven years—sometimes when Steve was emotional he surfed it out, and sometimes he’d show up at Danny’s place and stay for a while.

Danny’d never questioned that (although maybe he should have). It was just one of those inexplicable Steve things Danny knew better than to try to resist. And, if he was really, really honest with himself, he didn’t _want_ to resist it. Not this time. Because the truth was, and he was getting it, slowly, finally, surely; but the truth was that Danny _wanted_ him there.

So, when Danny was about half way home, he started getting a bit anxious to get all the way home. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he knew he was going to do _something_. He turned on the radio for a distraction, and right away knew that Steve had been messing with it again—it was on that awful cheesy music station he loved so much. Danny was about to throw up and change it to his favorite, but the song ended and the next one started, and of course, _of course_ it was “Sexy Eyes,” because that was just perfectly Danny’s life.

Steve. Infiltrated. _Everything_.

He listened to the song. Saw, in his mind, Steve singing along. Saw the Steve of seven years ago— _god, how young he looked_. And Danny saw too how much Steve had changed in seven years. His heart couldn’t really handle thinking about everything Steve had been through in that time, and he wasn’t about to start thinking about his own list. But he felt it as this sort of wash over his body; a shifting, a transformation. And what he realized it meant, what he knew somewhere deep within him, was that everything that had happened to them both over the past seven years had been pushing them towards this; shaping them for it, driving them together. Ever since that very first moment in Steve’s garage that was etched like lightning in Danny’s bones.

Danny did not believe in fate. He’d struggled with that, but when it came down to it, he just couldn’t. He was pretty sure Steve did—they’d come close to fighting about it a couple of times when they were drunk and not holding as tightly to their protective coverings as they usually did. Danny simply couldn’t allow himself to believe that things happened as they were meant to. He’d seen far too many horrible things that were just _not_ meant to happen. It was something he’d never be okay thinking.

But there was very little room for doubt in his mind that through the past seven years he and Steve had basically been becoming each others’ person. That, he was willing to admit. He wasn’t making a big deal about it; it didn’t feel like a big deal. It just felt like what _was_. What was unavoidable. Inextricable. Inexorable. Not meant-to-be. Just, what had become.

By the time Danny arrived home, he felt pretty much pushed by that seven-year-long process. Pushed to _what_ he still wasn’t sure. But he didn’t feel it as something over which he had control. It was like the auto pilot he fell into during a case; he didn’t think about it, just trusted that he’d make the decisions he needed to as they arose.

He let himself in, saw he was exactly right about where Steve would be and what he’d be doing—a half empty glass of red wine was on the coffee table, as were Steve’s bare feet, and _Moonraker_ , of all things, was on the TV. Steve himself was, completely adorably, asleep. Danny moved around the coffee table and stood, watching his sleeping partner.

You never would have known, seeing him that way, that earlier in the day he’d driven his truck through the front door of someone’s house to kill two assassins and save the lives of a coma patient, a nurse, a retired cop, and Danny. You wouldn’t have known that he loved to jump out of planes, dive in front of bullets, blow things up, and generally terrify Danny every single day of his existence.

And you certainly would not have known just how entangled his heart was with Danny’s.

Steve stirred, opened his eyes, saw Danny, and smiled. “Hey, buddy.” He dragged his feet down from the coffee table and stood, sleepily.

Danny didn’t move. He watched as Steve neared him, and for one micro second felt the tiniest bit bad that he was about to shock the hell out of his partner of seven years. Because as Steve got closer and went to hug him, Danny suddenly knew exactly what to do. He reached up, wrapped his arms behind Steve’s neck, and pulled him into a kiss.

He’d expected, if he’d thought about it (which he had tried very hard not to in that split second), but he’d expected some sputtering, or tension, or some form of resistance.

Instead what he got was Steve positively melting in his arms. Not quite a groan, but a guttural sound of some sort that Danny felt all the way to his toes. Steve let Danny lead the kiss, control it, and it sent sparks of utter amazement through Danny’s brain, because Steve never let Danny control _anything_. The thought was so stunning to him that he pulled back and peered into Steve’s eyes, the expression on his own face no doubt one of confusion, surprise, and maybe just a hint of dawning understanding.

“Why are _you_ the one who looks surprised?” Steve chuckled, as he brought a warm, surprisingly soft hand to rest on Danny’s cheek.

“Because you didn’t resist.”

A smirk spread slowly across Steve’s face. “Now why would I want to resist _that_?”

Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Or try to control it at least.”

Steve allowed Danny’s point: “I might, next time,” and he leaned down to kiss Danny again.

But he didn’t try to control it. He encouraged Danny to. Which he did. Until he had to stop himself before things went any further. Charlie was asleep in the next room, and the brick walls and wood floors made everything echo. And this had been building for seven years; it wouldn’t do to rush now.

Seemingly in response to those thoughts, Steve took Danny’s hand in his and led him to the kitchen. “Come on, I’ve got some dinner for you.”

Danny’s eyes closed as he felt his body flood with a contentment he was fairly sure he hadn’t felt before, and yet it was strangely familiar. They sat in the kitchen while he ate, Steve watching him with a fondness Danny was realizing had always been there. He might have thought Steve would look at him differently, after the kiss, and yet it felt less like a change and more like something that was no longer missing. And at the same time it had been there all along, so even that wasn’t quite right. Still, he felt as though _something_ should seem changed, and it didn’t. As he finished eating, he decided that was how it should be—and more to the point, he should have known that was how it would be.

While Steve cleaned up, Danny lingered in the kitchen. Typically when Steve stayed, he’d sleep on the sofa, like Danny slept on his; it was how they’d always done things. Tonight, however, Danny was torn. He wasn’t sure he could (or wanted to!) sleep _without_ Steve next to him (although he was completely exhausted physically—not to begin to mention emotionally), and yet he wasn’t at all ready to have Charlie wake up in the night and find his dad and uncle in bed together. Not that he thought Charlie would even blink at the change, but hearing from Charlie was _not_ how Danny wanted Rachel to find out.

While he was fretting over what to do, Steve had finished tidying up. “Go shower and try and get some sleep, okay?” He took hold of Danny’s hand once more, and tiny shivers went up Danny’s arms at the contact. (For all they were physically demonstrative and had been for seven years, this hand holding was something totally new, and Danny—who to be honest had never been much of a hand holder—found himself looking forward to more of it.)

“Are you...?” He started, but Steve, taking control once more, was a step ahead of him.

“I’ll be on the sofa, as usual. We’ll take it from here—” and he kissed Danny softly, “in the morning.”

Grateful for Steve’s take-charge attitude for once, he wondered briefly how long the whole letting-Danny-control-the-kiss would last. But he knew that it would no doubt be like all things with them: a bit of a battle ground, contentious at times, with bickering of course, but always with that deep sense of love and connection and in-it-together-ness that flowed underneath everything they ever did together.

Turned out that was actually a pretty soothing thought on which to fall asleep, because after he kissed Charlie goodnight and then showered, he fell surprisingly quickly asleep.

When he woke in the morning, it was to the sounds of car racing coming from Charlie’s room. He stumbled blearily out of bed and down the hall, and stood in the doorway, watching Steve “racing” with Charlie—making sound effects and narrating the race as they went. After Charlie won (again), he saw his dad and jumped up.

“Danno, I love the bed, thank you! Uncle Steve told me you did it all yourself.”

Danny lifted his ever-growing son into his arms, looking over at Steve who was smiling smugly. “Your Uncle Steve helped, buddy,” he said, shaking his head at Steve, and feeling his heart thrum with gratitude. _Thank you_ , he mouthed, to Steve, who grinned in response.

“I think we should go out for pancakes, Charlie, what do you think?” Steve asked him as Danny set him down.

“Yeah!” Charlie reached up for Steve’s out stretched hand for a high five. “Great idea, Uncle Steve!”

“Yeah, great idea, Uncle Steve,” Danny echoed, rolling his eyes.

“Okay, you go shower and get ready, buddy,” Steve said, sending Charlie out the door and towards the bathroom with a pat on the back. As soon as he was down the hall, Steve took Danny’s hands in his. “I’m pretty sure he’ll do a Navy shower, so it doesn’t give us much time, but....” And he tugged Danny aggressively against his chest and into a mind-numbing kiss.

“I don’t stand a chance, against the two of you, do I?” Danny mumbled, lightheaded, when Steve finally let go.

“You never did, buddy,” Steve said, wrapping an arm around Danny to steady him, and walking him towards his own shower. “You never did.”


	2. (Steve's POV)

As soon as Steve had heard Danny tell him to ignore everything he’d ever said to him about driving the speed limit, he’d hung up the phone without a word; to say “spurred to urgent action” would be a vast understatement. That one sentence had told him all he needed to know— _more than he needed to know_ —about the severity of the situation. Perhaps he was being a tad dramatic, maybe he was feeling overly protective (and there were reasons both of those things were plausible on that particular day) but in all honesty, he’d never been more terrified by Danny’s reaction.

Until Danny said “I could be dead in ten minutes.”

Which probably explains why Steve drove his truck through the door. There was simply No. Way. On. Earth. he was letting Danny die. And, frankly, the fact that the Ochoa cartel had thought they could get to him, had thought Steve wouldn’t have something to say about that... well, clearly he’d been slipping in terms of the persona he tried to maintain about what happened to anyone who dared to touch his ohana.

The thing was, Steve had realized—maybe too recently—just how much Danny really did mean to him. And the thing was, it had been Charlie who had made him see it.

Steve had been a bit down, ever since the whole story about his grandfather’s sacrifice had come out. Maybe putting the photo of his grandparents by his bedside hadn’t helped. Or leaving the Purple Heart on the coffee table. But he’d wanted to remember. To honor what his grandfather had done. And at some point along the way he’d realized that his thoughts about his own (now admittedly genetic) predisposition to rush in to save the team at the expense of himself... well, somewhere along the way that had gotten a bit more complicated than it used to be.

5 feet 5 inches of complicated.

Steve adored Grace. He’d always known that, from the first moment he set eyes on her, and she probably knew it as well. If she hadn’t, she (and Danny too) had to have realized it when Steve had burst into that ballroom calling for her—not Danny, as he usually did, but Grace.

He was only just getting to know Charlie. But as Danny spent more and more time with his son, and Steve had started hanging out with them for much of it, he’d found that Charlie had wormed his way deeper into his heart than he’d known was possible.

And then he’d realized why.

Charlie adored Danny. Unconditionally, with the purity of childhood, he just simply thought Danny'd hung the moon.

And really, when it came to it, Steve absolutely agreed with him.

So, while Charlie and Steve had bonded over cars and cartoons, and while they both liked strawberry ice cream best, and while they were both early risers where Danny was decidedly not, it was their love for Danny that had truly forged the bond Steve was coming to feel he couldn’t live without.

When Danny had let slip that he was going to be spending the day working on Charlie’s room, Steve hadn’t even given him a choice. He’d inserted himself into that project without Danny having asked, but surely Danny hadn’t imagined Steve wouldn’t want to be involved? Good thing he had, too, or that bed would never have been put together properly.

At any rate, the point is that Steve was already operating that day under a certain level of heightened awareness of his true feelings for Danny, and maybe he’d been thinking about how and when he might finally _do_ something about it, even before that dreaded phone call.

So really, the whole car-through-the-door thing hadn’t been anything other than exactly what was called for by the dictates of Steve’s heart. Which, let’s be honest, was exactly how Steve did everything anyway. Especially when it came to his ohana.

Once everything had been taken care of at what remained of the house—and by taken care of, really that meant basically “passed off to HPD to deal with”—Danny’d sent Steve back to town, asking him to be at his place when Rachel dropped Charlie off that evening. Steve had been thrilled, positively thrilled, Danny had chosen that rather than calling Rachel and saying he needed her to keep Charlie.

When he opened the door, and Charlie jumped into his arms, he felt his eyes go a little misty. Trying to cover that up before Rachel could notice, he turned his back on her as he set Charlie down, just inside the house.

“Hey, buddy. Your dad’s not back yet, but your room is finished. Why don’t you go check it out?”

Charlie yelled “Okay!” and rushed to go look.

When he turned back to Rachel, the way was she was looking at him was oddly unsettling. “He’s crazy about you, you know,” she said, with a secret smile that seemed somehow out of context with her words.

“Well, I’m crazy about him, too. He’s a great kid.”

Her lips pressed together in amusement, and he swore her eyes were actually twinkling. “I meant the other one.”

Steve’s throat clenched. He wasn’t at all sure what to say to that, so he didn’t.

She didn’t seem to need an answer (either that or his lack of one gave her what she needed). Her gaze softened. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said, warmly. “Have a good evening with him,” she said as she handed over Charlie’s bag.

He had a hard time getting Charlie out of his room to eat some dinner, but the promise of more races before bed finally won. Dinner went well (Danny probably would have made an observation about Steve’s conversational skills being about on par with Charlie’s, but Steve wouldn’t have minded), as did getting ready for bed, and then they both had a really good time with the racing, staying up a little later than Danny would have allowed. Steve might have been glad to have Charlie to focus on, as a distraction from Rachel’s words which were still bouncing around inside his head.

If her words weren’t making Steve feel strengthened in his resolve to do something about his feelings for Danny, the fact that Charlie was so incredibly at ease with his Uncle Steve actually was. (Steve and Charlie agreed about Danno being wonderful, so maybe Charlie and Danny agreed about Steve....) But deciding to finally say something, and finding the words to use, well those were two totally different things.

Once Charlie was in bed, Steve poured himself a glass of wine, picked a Bond film from Danny’s DVR, and sat down on the sofa to see if he couldn’t figure out something that didn’t sound impossibly awkward. Just a few sips of wine, though, and his own strain and worry from the day caught up with him, and soon he was drifting towards sleep. _Well, maybe not having a plan would be the best way to deal with the situation_ , he thought as his eyes fluttered shut.

He knew Danny was watching him, even before he opened his eyes. There was an electricity in the air that he could feel on his skin. Opening his eyes, he saw the way Danny was looking at him, and his pulse sped up. He’d been dreaming about Danny, he realized with a jolt. A very, very nice dream.  

“Hey, buddy.” He lifted his feet down from the coffee table and stood, feeling drawn forward by some magnetic pulse.

Danny watched him intently as he moved closer (which maybe Steve should have taken a clue from), and he lifted his arms to pull Danny into a hug (which maybe he thought he might imbue with some deeper meaning somehow), but before he could hold him close, Danny’d reached up, wrapped his arms behind Steve’s neck, and drawn him into a kiss.

Well, maybe _that_ explained the electricity in the air.

Relieved that Danny had made the move before he’d been able to attempt using words, Steve allowed Danny to lead the kiss—and found he positively melted in Danny’s arms. He tried not to make too loud of a sound, but his pent up longing escaped from within him as Danny deepened the kiss. Suddenly Danny pulled away, and when Steve looked, he saw surprise written clearly on his partner’s face.

Laughing to himself but trying not to let it show, he put a hand to Danny’s cheek, needing to maintain that contact. “Why are _you_ the one who looks surprised?”

Danny looked puzzled. “Because you didn’t resist.”

Of course he couldn’t know that Steve had been dreaming of just such a kiss when he’d come home, but it amused Steve that Danny seemed utterly unaware that he had been longing for it. “Now why would I want to resist _that_?”

“Or try to control it at least.” He looked even more suspicious.

Well, alright, that was fair enough. “I might, next time.” The thought sent sparks to his finger tips, and he leaned down to kiss Danny again. But still he didn’t try to control it. He didn’t want to; he wanted to feel Danny leading him, wanted to know that Danny was there, in the same place he was. And just as things were starting to go maybe a little too far, all things considered, and Steve had been about to wonder how long they’d both been wanting this, Danny pulled back just enough, and Steve took the prompt to suggest Danny eat something. Taking Danny’s hand—again, needing to maintain contact of some sort—he led him to the kitchen. “Come on, I’ve got some dinner for you.”

Danny was grateful for the food, Steve knew. He’d done it a number of times—had food ready for Danny when he needed it. Steve liked how it made him feel he was doing something _helpful_. So often with Danny he felt completely helpless; the more verbal-based intimacies were things Steve would never be truly comfortable with. But the practical matters: cleaning, building things, cooking... those were ways Steve realized he’d _been_ showing Danny what he meant to him. For a long time before he’d been fully aware of it himself.

He realized he was looking at Danny as if he was seeing him, seeing their connection, more clearly. Maybe that wasn’t quite right, maybe it was just the slightest alteration of perspective. He looked exactly the same, only more so. That didn’t make sense to Steve, but he knew it was true.

Taking the cover of cleaning up to gather his thoughts about what their next move ought to be, Steve washed the dishes while Danny sat silently. Well. Nearly silent. Steve thought he could _hear_ Danny’s mind whirring away. Maybe it should have worried him, made him at least a little apprehensive. But it didn’t. He surprised himself by finding it _comforting_. And that thought led him to what their next move should be... and to the need for him to be the one to say it.

He turned away from the dishes and took Danny’s hand. “Go shower and try and get some sleep, okay?” The last thing Steve wanted was to not be at Danny’s side that night, but he knew that it was the right choice.

He was pretty sure he saw a flicker of regret in Danny’s eyes. “Are you...?” He started, but Steve pushed forward before Danny could stir up and second thoughts in him.

“I’ll be on the sofa, as usual. We’ll take it from here—” and he kissed Danny softly, “in the morning.”

Steve typically slept reasonably well on Danny’s sofa. He probably wouldn’t have realized that was at least in part because he was under the same roof as Danny, and that would always be soothing to him. But tonight was different, and Steve found he was restless. Eventually he did drift off, to slightly bizarre dreams involving him and Danny cooking together; smearing spaghetti sauce on each other’s noses, feeding each other cannolis, and just generally kissing in the kitchen a _lot_.

When Steve woke, he heard soft “rarrrh”ing noises coming from Charlie’s room. Smiling to himself and thinking he finally understood why Danny hated it so much that the kids didn’t live with him all the time, Steve got up and headed in to spend some time with Charlie while Danny hopefully slept for a while longer. He wanted to make the most of every moment he could with Charlie. It was almost like a looming threat—kind of how he’d been feeling about Danny ever since the whole list thing.

That feeling, about both Danny and Charlie, on top of the terror of yesterday, combined with the revelation of last night, felt to Steve like he was an intense mix of indestructible and horrifyingly frail. When Danny joined them, as he watched Charlie run to jump into his dad’s arms, Steve felt both feelings intensify overwhelmingly.

Needing to mark the occasion in a way that would be meaningful for them all, he decided they should go to the Wailana Coffee House for pancakes. (He might also have realized he needed to be in public so as to force himself to keep his hands off Danny, which he could already tell was going to be next to impossible—heck, it already _had been_ next to impossible, for the past seven years... and maybe that should have been a sign as well....)

As he patted Charlie on the back on his way to shower, Steve felt Danny’s eyes on him, felt his whole body respond, couldn’t wait to do so much more than kiss Danny... but even just the kiss was like fuel on his already tangled feelings—they flared more brightly at each touch of Danny’s skin. Rachel’s words about Danny being crazy for him echoed again in his ears, and he knew it absolutely went both ways.

“I don’t stand a chance, against the two of you, do I?” Danny mused, breathless, when Steve loosened his hold.

Steve wrapped an arm around Danny (and found he wanted to never let go), and he realized it was true. “You never did, buddy, you never did.” But as he said it, he saw with total clarity that he’d never stood a chance either. And that seemed just absolutely perfect.


End file.
